A busy week

FC players on international duty

1. FC Köln had several first-team and academy players representing their nations during the international break. Here is how they got on.

Jonas Hector was part of the Germany squad that took on the Netherlands and Northern Ireland in the Euro 2020 qualifiers. However, the FC defender didn’t feature in the defeat in Hamburg against the Dutch (2:4). Hector was also on the bench on Monday evening in Belfast.

It was a similar story for Florian Kainz and Louis Schaub. Franco Foda called both up to the squad but neither were brought on in their two games. After a confident 6:0 win over Latvia, they followed that up with a hard-fought 0:0 draw in Warsaw against Poland.

Ellyes Skhiri featured twice for Tunisia against Mauritania (1:0) and the Ivory Coast (1:2), playing just over 90 minutes across both games. Sebastian Bornauw was the only FC player not to miss a minute during the international break, as he was part of the Belgium under-21 side that lost 0:1 to Wales and drew 0:0 with Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Noah Katterbach and Darko Churlinov were also in action for their youth teams during the international week. Katterbach played in both of Germany under-19s games against England and Spain, while Churlinov came away with two goals and an assist in North Macedonia under-21s’ 7:1 win over the Faroe Islands.

Plenty of minutes for the youth internationals

For the FC youth players, there were also plenty of players with their respective nations. Sebastian Müller and Robert Voloder were both with Noah Katterbach during the international break, as all three appeared for the Germany under-19s. Müller, like Katterbach, featured in both games while Voloder made his debut against England in the second-half.

Stefan Ruthenbeck’s under-19 squad also had Mathias Olesen away on international duty. He was on the bench for the first-team against Northern Ireland, but didn’t feature in the 0:1 defeat. Olesen was part of the under-21 squad against Italy on Tuesday, and played the full 90 minutes in a 0:5 loss.

Markus Daun and the FC under-17s saw Philipp Wydra and Jens Castrop jet off during the break. Wydra was involved in all three games in the Syrenka Cup for Austria, and scored a goal in the team’s 4:2 win against Romania. Unfortunately, they fell to defeats against England (2:4) and Switzerland (2:3) thereafter.

Jens Castrop was also involved in all three games for Germany under-17s in their KOMM MIT-4 tournament against Israel, Italy and Belgium. They fell to defeat against Belgium (0:2), before a late fight-back against Italy (3:3) and then a comfortable win against Israel (8:1).